What Foundation?
June 11, 2023
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Many years ago, some people decide to build a neighborhood out on the ocean, by erecting houses on top of a metal platform right out in the middle of the sea. In the past couple of years, there has been apparently been a trend toward building homes, especially luxury houses, in the middle of the ocean, like in this picture. You have to admit, that does look like a pretty peaceful and beautiful place to live, and, of course, you’d have a lot of privacy out in the middle of the ocean. However, I’m no architect, but I can see one major design flaw with putting a small building like that right out in the middle of the water. Anyone care to guess what it might be? Right. No real solid foundation. What happens when a major storm, like a hurricane, comes up in the ocean? Is that house really going to be secure? Or is it just going to blow away in the wind? Without a firm, solid foundation, such houses are going to be destroyed.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells us a story of two men who built houses: one put his on rock, and the other on sand. When heavy rains came, the house built on rock was shaken, but not destroyed, while the one built of sand was washed away almost immediately. He tells this story to illustrate what happens whenever we listen to Him and follow His teachings. Now, here we have to be really clear about something. We often say that the foundation for our religion, even our faith, is the Bible, and that we stand on the Word of God as our foundation. But it’s actually far more than that. The foundation for our faith is ultimately not just the Bible. Hear me out. Very often we treat the Bible as a rule book, law code, or theological textbook. But instead, the Bible is the written record of God’s love and care for all the world, and especially His people, throughout all time, culminating, and best illustrated, in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.
We are reminded in today’s Second Reading from Romans, that even the law and the prophets testify to what God had ultimately planned to do through Jesus – to fulfill the requirements of the law by dying on the cross; and then rising again to save all people from eternal death and the power of the enemy, the devil, as the prophets had predicted. This means that we are saved not by anything we do, but by everything Jesus has already done. We especially hear in Romans 3:28, that “we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” We’ve heard before that what makes us unique as Christians is not that we follow a certain set of rules, but instead that we believe and trust in Jesus as our Lord, God, and Savior. In order to really understand the Bible, we have to have faith in Jesus. The Bible has to be understood and interpreted in light of the life, example, and words of Jesus. Also, as Jesus Himself says, what helps to build up our foundation is putting His teachings into practice. And that is also how we are to approach the Bible, and figure out what it is teaching us: how can we put the teachings and example of Jesus into practice based on what we read? Does what we do agree with Jesus’ example of love, compassion, care, and concern for people? This even goes for the Old Testament: for example, in today’s First Reading from Deuteronomy, we are encouraged to follow God’s commandments so closely that it is as if we were binding them on our hands and foreheads. We are to make them a part of our heart and soul. But what does this mean? It means that we follow God’s ultimate and most important command: to believe in His Son, follow Him, and put our trust only in Him for how to live. We are to have such a close personal relationship with Him that He is deeply embedded in our hearts and souls. And, indeed, choosing to follow and listen to Jesus, or not follow and listen to Jesus, does have consequences. We are blessed with peace, calm, comfort, and assurance by trusting Jesus and listening to Him, especially during times of trouble or struggle. We are also more able to live in peace and harmony with others if we follow Jesus’ example. However, if we choose to ignore what Jesus offers us, then we find that our lives can be more filled with trouble, and even our relationships can become problematic, if we try to stand on our own and go without any help from anyone, especially Jesus. And there are a lot of things which can cause us to do so.
Most of us are familiar with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. Well, there’s a particular reason why it’s leaning: in the late twelfth century, when it was first built, it was laid in weak and unstable topsoil, which made making a firm foundation nearly impossible. Over time, the soil has continued to erode, making the foundation even more unstable and insecure. Even though in 1990 something was done to prevent the tower from leaning any further, eventually there will come a day when the erosion underneath the tower will be so great it will cause the tower to fall. Here’s the lesson from the tower: challenges to faith, which can potentially damage or even destroy faith, do not always come as one-time disastrous events or major life happenings. Instead, they take the form of small things that happen over time, causing faith and trust in Jesus to be eroded. These can be things which, if left unaddressed and unchallenged, can destroy our faith. Also, if we allow the failings of other people to get to us, or if we confuse the opinions of other people with the voice of Jesus, that will get to us over time, and allow our faith and trust in Jesus to be eroded.
Also, where I come from in Southern California, right now is the beginning of the most intense part of fire season. It’s being predicted that this fire season is going to get even worse than ones before, because all the rain in recent months caused massive growth, which means more plants, and especially underbrush, to dry out. And since this summer has already become hotter than most, everything’s going to dry out faster. Which means all it takes is one small spark and – boom! – a miles-wide fire can get started in a matter of minutes. At the same time, people have built houses on cliffs overlooking the ocean. Those cliffs are mostly made up of soft dirt, rather than solid soil or rock, and the soil is usually held together literally only by trees and plants. And when the trees and plants dry out or burn up, this means no foundation for the houses, which means whenever rain comes, it causes the mud to slide, erode away at the foundation of the house, and cause the house to be destroyed. In the same way, there are lot of things we are actually doing to allow our faith to be dried out and burned out, which maybe we don’t even realize. A lot of it has to do with how we react when things go wrong in our lives, and how we let it affect us. Furthermore, how we treat other people, or talk about other people, can also affect our faith and our relationship with Jesus. If we focus on anything else except Jesus, then our faith will be eroded. But if Jesus is embedded deeply in our heart and soul, then nothing can force Him out. So, every day, with Jesus’ help, we are to get rid of those things which are wearing us down, and keeping us from a close relationship with Jesus. We are also to do so not on our own, but together with other Christians – which is why it is important for us to continue praying for each other; and supporting and encouraging each other, rather than tearing each other down.
We Christians especially need to focus more on building each other up and supporting each other. Unfortunately, for far too long we’ve allowed opinions, politics, ideologies, prejudices, and differences, especially when it has come to interpretations of the Bible, to cause us to tear each other down. For the sake of pursuing peace and greater cooperation among Christians, and especially among Christian individuals, groups, and churches, there are certain interpretations of the Bible over which we have to agree to disagree. Instead, we are to focus on what our common foundation is: our faith in Jesus. We are to think of it as living in the same neighborhood, and underneath all the houses in which we live is one common solid foundation holding up all our houses: Jesus. If we are able to build each other up, and cooperate more closely, then we will be able to bring about a revival.
There is no doubt that we need some sort of revival in our country. But the revival we need is not some sort of moral or social renewal, or a return to any particular value system. It is also not defending Jesus: Jesus doesn’t need to be defended, He needs to be imitated. So, it is instead a return to following Jesus, heart and soul. It is laying aside everything which has been keeping us from following Jesus and trusting only in Him, and letting it be consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, burned away never to trouble us any longer. We also need a revival from the Holy Spirit to set us on fire to make us burn with an even greater desire to follow Jesus by imitating Him, which will cause others to want to know and believe in Him. It is also bearing those fruits which come from following Jesus, which are the fruits of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. This is where the true revival is going to come from, and this is how it can start with us. If we put ourselves back on the firm foundation of Jesus, we will not only stand firm, but we will help others to do the same. So, let’s put aside everything else, put ourselves back on that foundation, and start listening to Jesus again today!
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
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